Black Bear Streamer

[JeffHamm]

I was having a look at an older fly book (Trey Combs' "Steelhead Fly Fishing and Flies") and opened to a random page (as is often my wont) and just read a few bits. In doing so, I came across this pattern, called a "black bear" (despite having no black bear hair in the pattern). It sounded good to me, so I decided to tie one up and I'm quite pleased with the look. Unfortunately in the photo the hackle and tail looks very red, when in fact both are a mix of black and red hackles. The black doesn't seem to show up in the photo for some reason making them both look quite red when in reality they look more black.

This fly was developed by a fellow by the name of Al Knudson back in the 1950s for use during low and clear conditions in the summer, though he apparently found it worked well in any season when the water was clear and low. One winter he took an 11 1/2 and 14 1/2 lbs steelhead on back to back casts (fishing in the Skagit; not a river I'm familear with myself). Having had some recent luck with a Black Ghost bucktail streamer this one appealed to me (and the thought of two 10+ lbs fish on consecutive casts is just too good a recommendation to pass up. )

Anyway, the dressing is:
Thread : black
tail : red & black hackles mixed
rib : silver tinsel (I used wire)
body: black chenille (I used wool as I've tied this a bit smaller; size 10 rather than size 1 or 2!)
wing: black bucktail
hackle: black and red hackles, wound together

[Donald Nicolson]

Hi Jeff,
That is one of my favourite pastimes, browsing through old fly books.
I do not doubt you are right about the red and black hackles mixed in this particular
pattern, but a while back, reading an old recipe, I realised that what was meant by red/black hackle was a Furnace Hackle. The Veniard Hackle colour list -
http://donaldnicolson.webplus.net/page157.html
shows Furnace as Black centre with Red outer fibres (edges). It pays to be careful with older
recipes, as some of our predecessors were a bit careless with their recipe lists.
Again, I have no doubt about this fly, but I just thought I'd drop a little warning to anybody
else reading this string, if not carefully double checked, a fly tied can end up very different
from the original pattern.
More to the point, a very nicely dressed fly. I hope you catch a couple of 10lb + fish with it.

[Ron Eagle Elk]

Jeff,

Lovely fly, my friend. Al Knudson was a very well known steelhead fisherman and fly tyer here in the Pacific Northwest. His flies are classics and still take steelhead.

For a bit on the Skagit, take a look at http://www.flyanglersonline.com/feat...cast/rc348.php . It's a short "Reader's Cast" I did a few years back.

REE

[JeffHamm]

Hi Donald,

Good point! It was described as "red and black fibres mixed" and "red and black hackles wound together", so I'm pretty sure in this case it's as above. Also, steelhead patterns are often very brightly coloured, and Knudson thought this fly put the lie to the notion that steelhead would only take a brightly coloured fly. But you you know, though, furnace would look really good on this...

Indeed, I often wonder with the older patterns, when they say red, they often mean natural red, and for bright red they would put scarlet ... but of course, not always, and sometimes red just means red.

- Jeff

[JeffHamm]

Thanks for the link REE. Sounds like it was a great trip, even if the fish were reluctant to play much. I've been putting together a small collection of bucktail streamers for my fly wallet. I've got so many spiders and wee wets in various containers that I figure maybe I should round out my over abundance. Fun stuff.

- Jeff